This specification relates to advertising.
The Internet provides access to a wide variety of content items, e.g., video and/or audio files, web pages for particular subjects, news articles, etc. Such access to these content items has likewise enabled opportunities for targeted advertising. For example, content items of particular interest to a user can be identified by a search engine in response to a user query. The query can include one or more search terms, and these terms can indicate the user's current interests. By comparing the user query to a list of keywords specified by an advertiser, it is possible to provide targeted advertisements to the user.
Another form of online advertising is advertisement syndication, which allows advertisers to extend their marketing reach by distributing advertisements to additional partners. For example, third party online publishers can place an advertiser's text or image advertisements on web pages that have content related to the advertisement. As the users are likely interested in the particular content on the publisher webpage, they are also likely to be interested in the product or service featured in the advertisement.
When an advertisement is selected within a web browser, a landing page associated with the advertisement is provided to the web browser. The landing page can, for example, be a web page of the advertiser. Often an advertiser may offer a product or service for purchase on the web page, or may elicit information, such as an e-mail address, from the user. The achievement of such a goal (e.g., a sale or obtaining contact information) is known as a conversion.
Some advertisers, however, do not offer products or services or elicit information on their web sites. Instead, the goal of these advertisers is to build brand recognition or provide the user with information about their products or services. An example is an automobile manufacturer. An automobile manufacturer does not sell automobiles on its web sites; however, it provides much information about its products on its web sites. Thus, the goal of this advertiser is to attract users that will spend a relatively long amount of time and/or navigate many pages on its web site. There is, however, no pricing model available for bidding for the placement of advertisements to such users.